Weekly Love: Week 132

Believe it or not, this week my parents told me that maybe I should try and relax a bit more and actually unplug. I know through my blog and Instagram it seems like all I do is go to the beach and eat out, but if you had told me how much work editing and writing one blog, editing and contributing to another, keeping up with work stuff and my university degree, even though it sounds a lot I would not have believed you how much it takes and how little downtime I have. Even in the shower I'm formulating new blogs posts, and and I'm thinking about ways to tweak the recipes I'm currently testing while I'm walking to class. The moment I wake up in the morning I grab my iPad and skim through the days emails. I know reading something that involves thinking about and staring at my iPad screen for hours at a time is not exactly what they meant, but on Sunday I actually managed to find a lovely couple of hours to relax in; if you feel like life is getting on top of you, sit down with the Sunday papers and read every article that interests you in every single section from cover to cover; you'll be surprised by how much more relaxed you feel at the end of it.

1. Spending a Friday afternoon chilling out on Santa Monica Beach. | 2. Lots of taco goodness at Blue Plate Taco on Ocean Boulevard, opposite Santa Monica Pier; it is a relatively new restaurant  and I was very impressed. Expect a 'Places To Eat In Los Angeles' feature soon! | 3. Champagne Mango Agua Fresca to match my nail polish (a new Revlon shade that I am not entirely impressed with, still hunting for the perfect yellow!) picked up at Whole Foods when I stopped in to pick up some raspberries. | 4. Yogurtland with fresh mango, sprinkles and lots of strawberry and mango boba. | 5. Catching the latest episode of Have I Got News For You on my iPad now a new season has started is one of the highlights of my week. | 6. I've been experimenting with a new fajita recipe for my 'Student Suppers' column recently, which hopefully will be online soon. An unauthentic but still very effective habit I picked up from my Dad; my fajitas happen in a Wok!

• Behind the scenes at Neals Yard Dairy.
• Ashleigh and her boyfriend have decided to work their way through all the places on my list of 10 London Restaurants & Cafes I Can't Wait To Eat At. Their first stop? Pizza East.
• The White Company has a fantastic DIY idea of growing herbs in their old burn out candle pots.
• DIY Floral Shoelaces.
• Annie took some pretty impressive and insightful photos as to daily life in the region on her recent visit to Delhi - I can't wait to see the shots from the rest of her trip!
• 5 amazing hotels to stay in all around the world.
• Eating Quinoa may be good for you, but is it ethical?
• Nicole Cari shares her favourite places in LA; her places are more around the Sliverlake, more laid back vibe and area than my blog features, which are very Westside-centric.
• If you are in New York, you need to visit the Piperlime store in Soho.
• You know Aussie swim brand We Are Handsome? They also make playing cards.
• Elodie shares her favourite French Pharmacy products from the perspective of someone who grew up with them. I personally agree with her picks; there are so many I always grab when visiting my French home on her list.
• Doesn't this Spring lunch time in Paris look simply perfect?

Change is afoot at The Glossy Guide, the makeup and beauty blog I write with my best friend Kathryn. Once we have been reunited in June and we've managed to fit in plenty of 'meetings' laid out in the sun on Santa Monica Beach we are going to be re-launching with a new style, design, the works. (You heard it here first!) over the next two months or so alongside our regular content we are going to be trialing some new style posts, the first of which I have written about high end hair care went online a few days ago. We'd love your feedback on the post, on The Glossy Guide in general, what we could do better, what features you absolutely love, and which you would not really mind if we scrapped. 

Also, I want to say a big thank you to Katy, the editor of Creative Boom for featuring Rachel Phipps of one of Creative Boom's Top 10 Lifestyle Blogs For Food. I am flattered by the company I find myself alongside on the list, including Joy The Baker, A Beautiful Mess and one of my recent food blog crushes the insanely talented 17 year old Top With Cinnamon.

7. Bright pink blossoms so typical of LA. | 8. I love the chalk board in TLT Food in Westwood detailing the story behind TLT and The Lime Truck. | 9. Okay, so I may have had yet another meal at Toast.

• I know there are still some people out there who do not fully understand Pinterest; so I think Laura Ashley's great guide is perfect to get you started.
• If you are going to be in Paris sometime soon, this is where you need to eat dinner.
• How to cook fried eggs for food photography.
• Emily has put together a list of her favourite LA eats. There are some of my Westside favourites like Gjelina and The Tasting Kitchen on here, as well as some picks from East and Central LA; areas I do not really venture into.
• Jamie King gets Coveteured. 
• Laetitia's Instagram snaps of her recent trip to LA capture the spirit of this city perfectly.
• What to do when you have a zit: Into The Gloss' best acne cures.
• 5 Gourmet Getaways in Britain.
• Did you know the classic French manicure actually comes from Hollywood?
• 5 Tips To Help You Vanish Acne This Spring.
• Emma talks about the history of the seed cake in British literature.
• Design Love Fest has put together a great guide to putting together blogger events.

Finally, while I usually try to keep my politics as far away from my blog as possible, I wanted to take a moment to honour Lady Margaret Thatcher who died last week. Either if you believed that she saved Britain or that she destroyed it, as I know the majority of my readers are British females we should take a moment to note the passing of our first British Woman Prime Minister. There are people who say she did nothing for women because while she was Prime Minister she did not do anything that could be singled out as specifically for women like governments after her did; she went after the difficult  'non female' briefs like finance and defence. She made it that being a woman did not matter; she was not able to do the highest job in our country because she was a woman, but because she was elected to the position and by being the same Prime Minister she would have been if she were a man, she did more for women than if she had made a big special out of womans issues in her premiership. She had the view on feminism that I do; it is nothing to do with woman being as good as or the same as men, but about everyone being judged according to how good they were at the job in hand, regardless of their sex.

What have you been enjoying this week, and what do you have planned for the weekend? This weekend I'm hoping to shoot a few upcoming recipes for the blog and tomorrow I'm going to head down to Abbot Kinney Boulevard to shoot some photos to go with this months instalment of my 'Project LA' column for The High Tea Cast.